Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Behind the Scenes 3

Received another comment from Anonymous:

Your opinion does not change the fact the invisible fairies are true either. What kind of argument is that? There are books dedicated to the question of where "morals" and a sense of right and wrong come from. Simple answer, if society doesn't figure out that lying and throwing rocks aren't productive, its a society that doesn't last long. When you treat people nicely, you feel nice as well. It isn't some magical being who channeling rules into our heads. If what your talking about is truly unknowable and you concede that point, then you still remain ignorant in your description of it. Merely asking the question doesn't get you off the hook. Atheists who haven't moved things along? Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Einstein...you've reduced this to name dropping because of your ignorance? The fact that you end on the absolute ridiculous Pascal's Wager only shows just how little you know what your talking about. Didn't you know the only people god lets into heaven are the people who have the gull to disbelieve in him? Are you willing to gamble? Understand how ridiculous you sound, then try again.

Your opinion does not change the fact the invisible fairies are true either. What kind of argument is that?

You're not getting what I'm saying here. Neither of our opinions have any effect on whether what I'm saying is true.

There are books dedicated to the question of where "morals" and a sense of right and wrong come from. Simple answer, if society doesn't figure out that lying and throwing rocks aren't productive, its a society that doesn't last long. When you treat people nicely, you feel nice as well. It isn't some magical being who channeling rules into our heads.

If what your talking about is truly unknowable and you concede that point, then you still remain ignorant in your description of it.

I never said it was unknowable.

Merely asking the question doesn't get you off the hook. Atheists who haven't moved things along? Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Richard Dawkins, Einstein...

I was thinking sarcastically along the lines of Hitler and Stalin...

you've reduced this to name dropping because of your ignorance? The fact that you end on the absolute ridiculous Pascal's Wager only shows just how little you know what your talking about.

All I did was state a two-variable problem: Either this is true or false, and what would be the possible reactions to it? Even looking at it from a utilitarian point of view, the choice is obvious.

Didn't you know the only people god lets into heaven are the people who have the gull to disbelieve in him? Are you willing to gamble? Understand how ridiculous you sound, then try again.

Anon, I haven't made fun of you, or called you names on your blog, so don't track mud through mine, ok? I'm not required to sit here and reason with you. You and I have got two totally different ideas on what's true and what's false.

I'm required to witness what's happened to me, to people around me. That's why it's called "witnessing"--it's because I was there when it happened, and I was who it happened to. You weren't there. So stating that what I'm saying is false because it's never happened for you is moot. Stating that it's false because you don't believe in God is moot. And really, if I said it's truebecause I believe in it, that would be moot.

We're going to round and round on this because I'm talking about absolute truth, not this "It may be true for you, but it's not true for me," stuff. This is the kind of real truth that exists regardless of if everybody believes it's false. It's true... and it doesn't care what any of us think.

This whole blog, including the arguments we have, is meant as a witness for what God's done in my life. You can say anything you want about how I'm deluding myself, or how I'm blinding myself to the truth, but everything you're saying about it goes against Truth. That doesn't make you differently-opinioned, it makes you wrong.

There. I said it.

I'm sorry that I can't pull God out of my back pocket and say, "Here's God. He's real. Repent and believe." The only thing I have for you is my witness of what God's done in my life. I didn't choose for it to happen. I didn't wake up one day and say, "It's a slow day, I think I'll get saved." It wasn't on my own terms. Most Sundays I'd go to church and sit under preaching, and comehome and sin dozens of ways and none of it would bother me. There was a little bit of niggling in the back of my mind about how I was living my life, but I could squash that down easily enough and keep going. I also made sure to pray for forgiveness so I could live like I had a license to sin.

One day though, I remember looking in the mirror and suddenly I realized what a mess my life was. No lead-up to this point, just WHAM, I was convicted. It wasn't my timing, and up to then, teachings just kind of slid over my head. I cannot explain why it happened when it did other than it being supernatural.

Such a radical change has happened in my life, and already I know you might say it's just a bunch of psychological misfirings or mental conditioning, but I'll explain anyway. I wish you had been my right-hand man five years ago, going with me everywhere I went and doing everything I did. If you were, you'd see how different things are now.

Everything about me has changed.

The best way I can describe it is, I'm a changed person inside and out. What's more, I can look back and compare to how I USED to act, and what my responses USED to be to certain things, and it's totally the opposite. My motives are different. Now, everything I do is for God's glory. I belong to the Lord. I use the word "belong" because the evidence of what He's done is so clear to me that it's like looking down and seeing a brand on my skin. There is no doubt.

Anon, I've given you some of my background in the past, back when we first met. You know that my line of work requires some intelligence. Does it even seem possible that I could switch it off in favor of believing in some cosmic vending machine?

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

What bothers me the most about you is that you call your admitted opinion "absolute truth" about whatever conception god brings to your head. You openly state and stand by a contradiction in terms and repeat in as many words as you can this fact with more unsubstantiated "witnessing."If you admit to wanting to reference Hitler and Stalin as using their "atheism" to move things along I can't even begin to understand why you wouldn't research the folly of this patently false argument and wrong assertion. Got Mit Uns on the Nazi belt buckles doesn't show Hitlers resolve as an atheist. Have a "lack of anything," a void, nothing, can not "be" something that motivates action. It doesn't make sense. You try to quantify an absence and put it behind action with what resonates with a very base understanding of the era.

Every time you say "It's true because it's true" you are circular. You, for whatever reason, decide that proof doesn't matter with "the most important truth" anyone can ever realize. Unless you mean your personal proof, which of course isn't good for anyone. It's hard to try and persuade with evidence or coherent argument someone who can only sputter meager and vague words about your feelings. You say something to the effect of "I'm sorry I can't prove a god to you, but here's my life's evidence." What is your agenda hear? Calling parts of your life as god's will isn't doing any favors or speaking about something that by definition is undefinable.

If your life was crap before you decided to start calling things god, o well. You were obviously making bad decisions or put in bad situations. I need you to play along like actions have consequences and that's why things change. You don't get anywhere on your knees or ignoring what we all can see and prove. Rehashing things like Pascal's Wager, even mentioning the argument shows that you don't care to change when your wrong and don't care to be humbled in your ignorance.